Tag: anger management

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Catastrophic Failure

We slept many hours. Summer, as usual, had many more than me. I woke up first, but we got out of bed around the same time. Power flickered overnight, so I had to start my computer up again. Shortly after I got it back up, power flickered again and I ended up losing all of my Tabs Outliner history. That extension has been critical for any projects I’ve had to research, so I spent literally the entire day trying to recover from that.

Summer made brunch for us out of some sausage and eggs we had in the refrigerator. Eaddie left. A new shower head was delivered, so I got that installed. I spent more time trying to recovery my Tabs Outliner, but eventually gave up and rolled back to my last good backup over a month ago. By that time, I needed to take Muad’Dib out for a run. I also wanted to have a good dinner, so I took the Pint X to my parents’ house and warmed up the leftover fish soup while my parents were out watering the plants.

Afterward we rode straight back home. I never could get the Pint over 10mph, which seemed strange. I guess I never really felt pushback, but it just felt like it wasn’t accelerating any further, and I didn’t want to nosedive. It didn’t help that it wouldn’t even make it straight up the driveway without nosediving.

When we got back in, I happened to notice that Summer put some parts of the coffee maker into the dishwasher that weren’t dishwasher safe. I didn’t feel like I blew up at her, but I still had to dig things out of the running dishwasher and clean up the mess. Two components were plainly labeled as not dishwasher-safe. She also left a pretty obvious sticker in place, so that came off in the wash. All of that ultimately lead to a small fight, and I simply couldn’t understand how she could possibly feel like she had any kind of argument.

It’s always simple, stupid stuff, but I don’t know how much more I can stand. I feel like my life was on a steady upward climb before I met her. I was moving upward with my career, and I was cleaning up my home. I let my own home suffer when I started spending most of my time with her at her house. I saw things in her life that I felt like we could improve as a team. Then I allowed the whirlwind of storm damage to my home, my desire to expand my property, and Bác Vân’s unexpected death to push me to move into a new home with her. It’s been an absolute freefall from that point forward. I can’t get any traction on any project, I’m constantly frustrated or angry, I don’t feel like I’m respected, and the only thing I can do to provide any happiness for myself is actively making everyone else unhappy.

Maybe I’ll figure it out tomorrow.

Why am I here?

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Hi Bixby

I could barely sleep all night, between the uncomfortable bed, differences in my travel CPAP, the hot room, and the bright lights coming through the windows. I laid in bed for a long while, unable to go to sleep, so I think I only got a couple hours of actual sleep. I got up and showered, then went downstairs with Summer to let Muad’Dib relieve himself. Then we took him back up to the kids before going down for breakfast. I was really pleased with their selection, but frustrated that the kids just wanted to sleep instead of coming down to eat, and then just complained about hunger later.

We checked out and headed to 181 Ranch in Bixby for the Conquer the Gauntlet. It was pretty overcast, but I couldn’t tell if it was actually going to rain or not. Summer wanted me to pay to be a spectator, so after waiting for them to finally start, Muad’Dib and I wandered into the field between obstacles and waited for them to come around. I took a few pictures, but there wasn’t just a whole lot of interest. It wasn’t terribly hot, but it was humid and gross feeling. We waited for a while, then went back to the car for a bit while they went out farther than I cared to go.

Muad’Dib did great, and got lots of attention from strangers. We eventually went back out and found our crew as they finished up the last few obstacles. I actually thought they had another loop, but they were actually on the home stretch, so we didn’t get to see them finish. It actually started to rain pretty hard, so we ran back to the car and just waited for them to get back.

The kids wanted nothing but Red Lobster after that, which I hated, because there were so many more exotic things we could have tried. There wasn’t really much around us either, so I drove us through Muskogee on the way home to find the Red Lobster there. We missed a turn out in the farmlands, but got headed back in the right direction. We charged just as we got into town, then made our way to Red Lobster. As we got close, it looked completely dark and there were zero cars around the place, so I continued on toward home. The kids had been chanting “Red Lobster” repeatedly, intentionally annoyingly, and I didn’t have self-driving and had to actually pay attention to what we were doing, so I shut them down and continued driving toward home.

After some back and forth, I agreed to drive them way out of the way to get to the Red Lobster in Fort Smith. Our server was incredible, so at least I had a full plate of shrimp in front of me at all times. We ate, then stopped in Ozark for one last charge before making it home.

I had been communicating with a lady about a Onewheel Pint X she had on Facebook Marketplace, and agreed to meet her once we got back into town to buy it. Then Summer informed me that her debit card had been compromised, and she hadn’t gone to get a new one yet. I started worrying about figuring out my own ATM situation since I no longer do any local banking, but the lady said Cash App would be fine.

As soon as we got home, the others unloaded and I took Muad’Dib to meet the family at Kroger. I had previously offered $700 out of the $750 she asked for, but after I paid her, I learned that her son was trying to save up for a dirt bike. With a heart full of approval and knowing what it’s like to want a motorcycle, I sent her $20 more for the cause. I let their son ride my GT-S around the parking lot to see how it felt, then loaded up and headed back home with our new Pint X in “Honda Grom Blue.”

Muad’Dib had been telling me the entire time that he really wanted to go for a run, so we did a short loop to my parents’ house, then back home before dark. Summer had wound down for bed while Eaddie was out and back, presumably fetching cars with Eli or something. I had a bunch of inefficiently packaged Vine products to unbox, but I also finally got my new Pixel 11 Pro. I got the screen protector installed, but didn’t bother going any further than that before bed.

Don’t fight it!

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See? See?!

Teisha texted me this morning just as I left the house, to say that the internet was still down. I saw it go down during the storm over the weekend, but completely forgot to check that it came back up. I raced in and started working on it right away. Of course I also had Heaven stressed from getting a new computer, so there was a lot to do right off the bat.

All of the equipment lights were on, but it looked like the firewall/router had choked. Of course as soon as I reset that, Joel reset the AT&T equipment and everything came back up, so he felt like he fixed it. I think one of the firewall pair was still having trouble, but I never had a chance to circle back to that because of everything else that broke. I had several unexpected devices at every level start pulling dynamic addresses, which ideally would have been set statically or by reservation. I just couldn’t understand why the Sophos wouldn’t allow for reservations, but it’s what we’ve got.

I was up and down the stairs several times as Heaven encountered new issues, but I think I finally had her satisfied by the afternoon. I ended up taking lunch late, which was fine since I brought leftover roast. Teisha also announced that there were several salads from Colton’s in the refrigerator that the guys who worked over the break didn’t eat. The entire day went by super fast, and then I ended up staying late trying to help Rhonda with a weird phone issue that may also be due to the outage this weekend.

The drive home was infuriating, as I followed someone at 40mph down the entire offramp, watching as the huge, wide-open space passes us by and was replaced by two lanes of trucks and other vehicles. I just barely squeezed around them and took off, but later got stuck behind two cars needlessly locked side-by-side under the speed limit. We finally were able to pass one of them on the right, I think because the person on the right realized how stupid it was and sped up.

We made it home where Muad’Dib was anxious to get inside, still fearful for the fireworks. Eaddie and Eli would be joining Summer and me at Cici’s for dinner, but she didn’t want to load everyone up in her car for some reason, and we didn’t want to have to unload the dog hammock. We left him in the bedroom to watch Spider-Man and met the kids at the restaurant for the pizza that all of us were craving.

After dinner, we came straight home and I tried taking Muad’Dib for a run. He absolutely refused to leave the driveway toward my parents’ house, so I tried to lead him in the opposite direction. He refused to go down our street or Tanglewood, but we made it very slowly up Inglewood. I felt so bad, but he needed a run. I had an anxiety attack just as we got to my parents’ house, and it left me pretty dazed for a while. Afterward I felt like I hit a brick wall of exhaustion, but we made it back home, just barely with a dead Onewheel.

Eaddie and Eli watched TV all night, and I tried to finish up quickly. There were still a few fireworks in the distance, but hopefully they quit soon, because I can’t stand seeing Muad’Dib so anxious. He spent a lot of time under the bed again, so I gave him some calming treats and went to bed.

EVERYBODY MOVE

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Gross Kids

Summer had to work today, so I slept in for a while before getting up to make a sandwich for breakfast. Then I cleaned the kitchen, and what should have been a simple task of loading the dishwasher turned into a gross food-dumping exercise with extra scrubbing. Not only were dishes left with food stuck to them, but there was just plain foods left in them. Eaddie eventually got out of bed and asked for some gas money, and I remembered that I didn’t pay her back previously because she failed to write her mileage down like I had required of her.

She left to spend the night in Clarksville, and then Summer made it home and took a bath. I had a stomach ache all morning, but it eventually settled down. I did some laundry and other cleanup until Summer was ready to eat. Then we loaded up and took Muad’Dib to Buffalo Wild Wings. The service and food were surprisingly good, and it’s been fairly consistent lately.

We stopped into Walmart after we ate so I could pick up some vitamins and minerals, because I am old and malnourished, apparently. While we were there, some lady and a bunch of kids came down the aisle. One of the older kids started looking for some iron pills, but was concerned about whether or not they were green. While we were standing there, she proceeded to pop open a bottle, break the tamper seal, and then start to put it back when it didn’t meet her criteria. I immediately got onto her for that, but they likely just moved on and put it down somewhere else.

We made it back home and I took Muad’Dib for a run. There were a few distant fireworks that had him on high alert, so I let him cruise on through the neighborhood at his own rapid, and possibly nervous pace. He skipped a different zig-zag through the neighborhood this time, and we went through the basin. We visited my parents while Mom was watering her plants, and then we rushed home. He kept hiding under the bed from the fireworks outside, so I really don’t want to leave him home alone tomorrow. Summer wants to go see them up close, but I hate the crowds, the weather, and leaving Muad’Dib alone. My pick is to watch from Mt. Nebo where it’ll be much more peaceful.

Isn’t pride kind of like, the first big one on the list?

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Underpowered

Somehow we managed to get out of the house extra early today, after a couple days of running behind. They were having some trouble with equipment overheating in the plant, and I pretty quickly got busy with tasks in the office. Heaven had enough trouble with her computer that I decided to rip the bandaid and swap it out with one I found in the upstairs conference room. Unfortunately it had the wrong power supply, and I couldn’t find the correct one anywhere. The computer would come on, but throttle itself to a crawl.

After that, I had to work on the break room signage that wouldn’t accept a presentation update. That update took forever, so I went upstairs to continue working. I had forgotten breakfast, and ended up skipping lunch because Summer said she would be hungry for dinner when she got home around the same time that I normally do.

Heaven’s new computer just barely hit 99% when it was time to go, so I just left it to finish overnight. We got home and Summer was in the shower, so I cleaned up briefly until she was ready for dinner. We ended up going to Brown’s because of how hungry I was, and because I had a coupon.

As I maybe should have predicted, Summer kept fanning herself with the coupon instead of presenting it to the cashier, so I ended up paying full price and didn’t scan my rewards card for points. Hopefully I’ll be able to get credit another way. I felt like a double-sucker when the food was some of the worst we’d had there. It wasn’t terrible, but almost everything was just barely warm. The shrimp was tiny, and it seemed like everything was really mushy, especially considering how busy they were.

We had left Muad’Dib at home alone, so we took him for a short walk up the cul-de-sac when we got back. Eaddie came home and wanted to have friends over to watch a movie, but I don’t think anyone but Eli ever showed up. They ended up disappearing while Summer and I watched Louis C.K.’s new special on Netflix. It was also pretty disappointing compared to the memories of his old stand-up. Then it was off to bed.

meh

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Quiet Focus

I felt like I slept okay even though my mind was reeling all night. I woke up around four and laid awake for most of the next couple hours, then got up and out for work. I forgot the power went out briefly yesterday, which messed up my clock. I was a little later than usual, but still there well before eight.

I had a pretty good, focused day after a bit of frustrating back and forth where our Aptean support just plain didn’t seem to be reading our messages. We still never got a real answer for anything by the end of the day. I had to fight with the laptop I had for Gary, since he decided he wasn’t going to be able to make it in person. I was planning to use him to test some of my recent policy updates as a part of updating for best practices, but instead I got to test something completely different.

The day went by really quickly, but I wanted to get something good for Muad’Dib for lunch since it was his birthday. We shared some chili cheese fries, chicken bites, and even a bit of my burger before heading back. It didn’t feel horribly hot, but it never felt like it got any cooler.

The rest of the afternoon flew by as well, and I didn’t even realize when it was time to leave. We walked out a little later than usual, so I just let the car do its thing most of the way home. Summer had a roast in the slow cooker all day, and Eaddie was having her birthday dinner with Eli’s family instead, so the two of us sat down to eat.

Afterward, I ran Muad’Dib to my parents’ house to help Dad pick up sticks in the front yard before they come over to mow. We didn’t stay long because it was warm, so we headed home and I gave Muad’Dib a much overdue bath. Eaddie had Eli and Mari over for a little while after Summer went to bed, so I tried to get things cleaned up quickly.

I finally got a copy of my new repair estimates for my car, and even found my original copies for the warranty work, but I know I had a check from the insurance company, and I can’t find it or any evidence that I deposited it.

Cheque please!

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Better Take Me First

I think we all slept fairly well last night. I got up and made some breakfast sandwiches for Summer and myself before she wanted to leave for the gym. Eaddie was in bed all day, so I never saw her. Not long after Summer had left for the gym, she called to say they were closed due to a power outage. Instead, she headed to the old house to mow, so I took Muad’Dib over there with the trimmer to get the rest of it cleaned up.

After that short trip, we went to the car wash to wash both of our cars. She went for a Sonic drink before meeting me back at the house, and after a little while we headed over to my parents’ house to swim. Mom was going to have spring rolls, but of course those plans were vague at best.

We ended up staying until it was time to get dinner ready. I sliced a bunch of meat while they went to the store for some more veggies, and eventually Julie and Kevin showed up with the baby. Eaddie and Eli showed up after they did some trimming in our lawn. It was kind of a hot mess with the baby wandering around haphazardly and not having much room on the table for all of the food. We set up a secondary table, but it ended up just being Eaddie and Eli out there.

I helped clean up a bit after everyone was gone, and then I left pretty upset at Kevin’s earlier comments about Muad’Dib. The baby kept going after him, and Muad’Dib was playing nicely, but he and Julie wanted to make a statement about how the baby’s otherwise neglectful family would react if Muad’Dib got aggressive, and I’m not willing to take any chances.

Summer and I went home while Eaddie went to Eli’s. Summer made it to bed quickly, and I wound down a little early myself.

It’s okay. Let’s go home.

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Eager Doggies

We had all kinds of dogs at work today. Joel was back with Dexter. Elizabeth has been bringing Zeke every day. Scott brought Maple, though I hardly saw her at all because she was hiding in Tyler’s office all day. Muad’Dib was having a fit about not being the baby any more.

I had my head stuck in Intune again all day, and had a support call before lunch for my strange PIN policy behavior, but I think I sorted that out earlier. It won’t be until another intermittent issue occurs that I’ll be proven wrong.

We went to Sonic for lunch, then finished up a pretty quiet afternoon. The drive home was fast and mostly dumb. Summer had a late meeting, so I rearranged the dishes in the dishwasher that she had washed and ran them all again. Then I put together a desk hutch I got for her. Just as she got home, I took Muad’Dib to the Neighborhood Market to deposit some bags for recycling. Then we made the trek to my parents’ house just as it was getting dark. Muad’Dib was pretty exhausted by the end of it.

Once home, I tried to quickly wrap things up for bed. I used to have a life.

At least someone’s paying attention.

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PINNNNNNNNNNNN

We stopped at Starbucks for a breakfast wrap and then hit the road where, ironically, I got stuck behind some idiot who was too distracted on her phone to drive. I eventually had to put down my wrap so I could pass her in a huff. We made it to work, and I chatted with David for a bit about his AI endeavors. Muad’Dib was impatient and ran upstairs with Scott, and then snorted at me when I finally made it up there.

Next, I discovered my Chrome had shit the bed, and I lost everything. My additional user profiles were gone, and I lost almost all of my extensions and their data. I still don’t have a clue what happened, but I spent a couple hours recovering from that. Then I was surprised by a prompt to increase my PIN length on one of my test laptops. I fought that for a little while, but eventually created a support ticket for it.

We had to take a late break and went to Taco Bell for a small lunch. Some kid randomly ran around the corner and surprised Muad’Dib, which made him start barking uncontrollably. It wasn’t a vicious bark, and the kid tried to pet him all throughout the event. We made it back to the office to fight my PIN policy some more, and I thought I finally had it figured out, but when I started to leave, I was prompted on my own computer to update my PIN to 14 digits. I was trying to get out, but a quick search gave me an answer that seemed to make sense, so I’ll have to try that fix in the morning.

We made it home after another troubling experience at the onramp leaving Morrilton. It’s such a perfect, long, clear, wide-open stretch of road that you can use to get up to speed, but for some reason these idiots insist on driving 40 all the way up to the Interstate with big traffic coming from the east. I’ll never understand it.

Summer had just barely beat us home, and jumped into the shower once we got inside. We lost power for a few minutes for some reason, but there wasn’t a storm or anything happening. When Summer got out, she was craving a burrito from Taco Villa, so I dug out some cash and drove all the way over there to find out they were closed. I called her, and we ended up going to Panda Express instead. Of course their order status was completely wrong, because I left Muad’Dib outside when it said my order was done. It was about five more minutes before they started plating us up, and then we left.

Summer and I ate, and then we cleaned up and took out the trash before she went to bed. I could have used a walk or something to keep the indigestion at bay, but I ended up going to bed early myself.

Deal, or no deal.

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Just Eat It

I didn’t sleep very well or very long. I didn’t let myself sleep in because I knew I wanted to get some meals in, so I took Muad’Dib outside and then brought some breakfast back upstairs with us. I was really proud of him when he did a great job of sitting by a table alone while I went into the other room to get food. Summer was slow to get out of bed, but then I slowed down a bit as we were trying to get out of the room. We ended up checking out right on time, and made our way down the road to Southern Tail for brunch.

Summer walked up to the front and learned that they were only seating people with reservations, which would have been nice to know before we planned an entire weekend around the event. They didn’t take any of her information, and instead told us to come back around 12:30. We sat in the car until then, but when I walked back in to ask about seating, I was told there was a wait list, and we wouldn’t get a seat until around one. That they the girl got my number and called us back in at 12:35.

We got seated outside as the heat intensified. It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t fresh feeling. There was a pretty good band playing live, and the food was good though. Service was slow, so we didn’t have much for drinks, but it was an okay time. It might have been worth the price at a better season with some good company.

We headed straight home after that, and had a little bit of time to lounge before heading to my parents’ house to swim. The pool was surprisingly cold, and by then most of it was in the shade. Julie and Kevin eventually showed up with some Popeye’s chicken and we picked at a little bit of food.

I was completely beat by the time we got home, so I shut down quickly and got ready for bed.

What did you expect?